printRand Paul was smart. Unlike Marco Rubio, he didn’t abandon his senate seat when he stood for president. “[H]is Senate seat [was] a backup if and when his presidential campaign fell through.” Paul even “paid the state party hundreds of thousands of dollars to hold a caucus instead of a primary, which skirted state law preventing his name from appearing on the same ballot twice.”
Rand was also diplomatic enough to frame his presidential bid as an extension of service in the Senate:
“I am running for president for the same reason I am your senator: to fight for you, for our country and for our rights,” he wrote.
Rubio, on the other hand, is a real spoilt brat, who has acted recklessly and impulsively. Basically, he didn’t like the Senate and was eager to move on:
as Rubio runs for president, he has cast the Senate — the very place that cemented him as a national politician — as a place he’s given up on, after less than one term. It’s too slow. Too rule-bound. So Rubio, 44, has decided not to run for his seat again. It’s the White House or bust.
“That’s why I’m missing votes. Because I am leaving the Senate. I am not running for reelection,” Rubio said in the last Republican debate, after Donald Trump had mocked him for his unusual number of absences during Senate votes. …